Category Archives: Thailand

Hatyai 2012, Thailand

Guide for Driving to Hatyai

July 31, 2012 Enqvist 1 Comment

Guide for Driving to Hatyai
Let me share a simple guide for those wish to drive to Hatyai from Malaysia.

Note
Driver has to drive his own car else certification letter required from the car owner.
Original car registration card
must purchase Thailand insurance

Malaysia Drive to Thailand Guide
1. Drive to Changlun and refill your car to full tank, petrol price in Thailand almost double.
2. Stop at any Cafe/Shop in Changlun that provide purchase of Thai Insurance service.
3. Purchase Thai Insurance (RM14, 9 days) and have them fill in the white card (RM1) or you can save RM1 by filling yourself at immigration counter
4. Drive up to Malaysia Immigration counter, driver collect passenger passport and handover to officer for passport chop
5. Drive up to Thailand custom building and park your car the the left side big car park.
6. Every individual queue to get your passport chop
7. After chop your passport, driver has to queue in the middle counter to submit passport and car registration card for car permit
8. Get back your passport and car regisration card together with car permit and move to next counter for verification, sign the document and the officer will take the car permit. no worry.
9. Drive your car with passenger inside, drive to the middle lane where you get your car permit just now.
10. Officer will pass you the car permit, make sure you keep this car permit secure as you need to return.
11. Done, you are now safe to drive in Thailand

Return to Malaysia Guide
1. Drive your way to Thailand Custom, either pass the car permit to the officer while you driving through the immigration or park your car at the side and hand over the car permit.
2. Driver and passenger get down from car and have your passport chop, once done back to your car and drive toward Malaysia immigration.
3. Driver collect passenger passport and drive through the immigration counter for passport chop.
4. Done, you are back to Malaysia.

Hatyai Travel 2012 Direct Link
Hatyai Travel 2012
Day 1 Driving to Hatyai from Penang
Day 1 Khlong Hae Floating Market
Day 2 Lucky Dim Sum and Pasar
Day 2 Hatyai Ice Dome and Municipal Park
Guide for Driving to Hatyai

Chu Cha, Hatyai 2012, Thai Food, Thailand

Day 2 Hatyai Ice Dome and Municipal Park

July 31, 2012 Enqvist Leave a comment

Ice Dome is located around 10km away from town area, which is pretty far away but Tuk-Tuk did provide service to fetch customer there for a day trip which include Municipal Park. Ice Dome is actually located inside Municipal Park. Ice Dome was once down close down for maintenance but luckily it back into operation during our visit.
Hatyai Ice Dome

Entrance fees is 300baht adult and 150baht child. Sweater and glove is provided.
Hatyai Ice Dome Entrance Fees

Before we went inside the ice area we are lock inside a room with lower temperature to ensure our body get use to it, after 10minute we are allow to go inside.
The temperature inside is -3 Celsius, freaking cold.
First ice craving is China building which is paint and lighting to simulate the exact building.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Thai Building, is this the Thai Pavilion?
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Ice Slide, very nice build of the slide that made of ice. Lot of kids enjoy playing at this area, too bad that we are too big to play with those kids, even though we wish to try it out. The feeling must be amazing.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

A very small maze built with ice, we start to get very cold at this stage just after we inside for 20minutes.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Small Castle, all the ice craving is nicely crave with color painting and lighting effect to make it look so nice.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Feel like in Antarctic
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Cute little carving, unfortunately the paint start to melt, the statue look like vomit blood. Haha!
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Very nice ice craving.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Next area is even attractive, the scenery is just awesome. A small area with tree branches and a small tower in middle. Perfect place for photo taking.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

This should be Taj Mahal, India.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Dragon and elephant ice craving.
Hatyai Ice Dome Ice Carving

Hatyai Ice Dome is very special to us as we never experience such cold temperature before, we are in there for around 40minute and that it. We are too cold to continue stay inside, our hand and ear is start freezing, compact camera is no longer function as well. It well worth the 300baht spend for the last 40minute, it is so fun.

After spend 40minute in such low temperature, our stomach probably work too much to generate heat and it start to get hungry. We head out of ice dome and saw this road side stall selling grill chicken and squid.
We ordered one chicken and squid and it cost us 140baht, damn expensive. Regret did not ask for the price before ordered.

After taking enough rest and our body get use to the outside temperature we start heading to other area that has statue for photo taking.
All other area in Municipal Park is free entrance.

Astronomy Building

Buddha Statue
God Statue

Standing Buddha, it is amazing to see this Buddha that stand high in the sky. It act as a god that look after the whole Hatyai as the view from here fully cover the whole Hatyai.

Awesome view of Hatyai
Hatyai View

Another view of the great Standing Buddha

Some great scenery surrounding the Standing Buddha

Proceed down the road is Golden Dragon, a big dragon painted in gold color with big mouth open that allow you to walk into it. Some people say you have to follow left or right stair case for enter and go out but since I have no idea hence we just go as we wish and hope everything will be fine. LOL!

Immediately after the Golden Dragon mouth you will see the big statue “nie le foh” and another Buddha statue that I not sure what is the name.
Nie Le Foh

Gold and “Silver” dragon statue.

Nie Le Foh
Statue

Right side of the Golden Dragon is Kuan Yin Temple.

Flower
Flower
Flower

Kuan Yin Temple

Hatyai Municipal Park consist of few Buddha statue, people are coming here for praying. Even if you not praying here it still worth a trip to here since the statue is very beautiful and the view from standing Buddha area is just amazing. Furthermore at this area you can visit the Ice Dome that give great experience on low temperature.

After visit Municipal Park we head toward Tesco Lotus for our final shopping, we as well try it KFC. The KFC chicken is almost the same as our Spicy flavor but they do have prawn donut that is very special, it look like donut but taste salty and with small prawn in it. Very delicious.
KFC Donut

It getting late and it time to go home, we decided to leave Hatyai and back to Jitra, Kedah for our dinner.

Drive back to Malaysia, reach the immigration counter either pass the car permit to the officer while you driving through the immigration or park your car at the side and hand over the car permit.
Driver and passenger get down from car and have your passport chop, once done back to your car and drive toward Malaysia immigration, driver collect passenger passport and drive through the immigration counter for passport chop.

The Thai Food Restaurant name Rung Reang, it located inside Jitra, Kedah.
Deep Fried Cat Fish is a must ordered dish, it is so delicious and crispy.

Garlic Chicken is truly disappointed, the Chicken is so hard and the garlic taste so separate with the chicken.

Tom Yam Prawn taste just good, the spicy and sour tom yam soup is so delicious while the white prawn is very fresh.

With that conclude our trip to Hatyai, 2 day 1 night is just nice for a trip to Hatyai as not much tourist attraction.
What to do in Hatyai is mainly about eating and shopping.

We spend a total of 6000baht (RM600) during our 2 day 1 night trip in Hatyai excluding car petrol and tolls.

Bah Kut Teh, Dim Sum, Hatyai 2012, Thai Food, Thailand

Day 2 Lucky Dim Sum and Pasar

July 31, 2012 Enqvist 1 Comment

Day 2 Trip – Lucky Dim Sum –> Pasar –> Ice Dome –> Tesco Lotus –> Rung Reang Thai Food Dinner

Good Morning! We are heading out for our day 2 activity in Hatyai city. Instead of driving around we decided to try the famous public transport Tuk-Tuk, you can easily get Tuk-Tuk right in front of any hotel. If you hold a big camera and look like tourist they will always horn and asking you to ride with them. Normally it cost 20bath per person to town area but if you have a group of people you may negotiate for an amount instead of per person 20bath.
tuk-tuk

Can this roundabout beat the small roundabout in Penang? It look like this is even smaller.
smallest roundabout

Lucky Dim Sum is around 1km aways from Golden Crown Plaza Hotel, Tuk-Tuk charge is 20bath per person.
The crowd is packing up when we arrive at 9 in the morning, here is the important note, you need to engage the person that stand in front of the shop coordinating to get a number. You can speak to him in Chinese or English and tell him how many person, he will then give you a number, wait for your number to be call and they will guide you to your table.
Lucky Dim Sum

They open for business in the morning 6am to 12pm and night 5pm to 10pm
lucky dim sum operation hour

Here are all the Dim Sum, every plate of Dim Sum cost 16bath no matter what inside.
Take note that all Dim Sum here is not yet cook, choose your dim sum and place it on top of the shelve with the number give to you just now.
They will cook it to you and serve it to your table, this is to ensure freshness and quality of food is maintain.
Dim Sum
Dim Sum

Utensil and various type of chili paste and soy sauce are ready at every table.
sauce
utensil

Instead a pot of tea we follow the local to go for a cup of coffee, actually we are trying to keep our self awake for the next few hour of excitement.
Did you realize their straw is much shorter? It actually just the height of cup and every time nose almost hit the drinks.
Coffee
Coffee

This look to be something familiar right? Yes it is Yao Cha Guai, but why Yao Cha Guai in Dim Sum restaurant? Well, you will know soon.

Another hints, black sauce with chili. What we eat with this in Malaysia?

Finally our Dim Sum is served, dim sum here is small in portion, all make to very cute. Loo at the Loh Mai Kai that is so small, on the left bottom is white fungus steamed with pork meat.
dim sum

Char Siew Pao also very small in size, same goes to the siew mai which is so tiny. Even though the dim sum is small but most of it delicious and fresh.
dim sum

Here the secret reveal, the big clay pot is Bah Kut Teh. Yes, Bah Kut Teh. Thai people like to eat Bah Kut Teh with Dim Sum together in the morning, something special here. In Malaysia we do eat Dim Sum and Bah Kut Teh as breakfast but both of them never come together. It is kind of heavy to have both meat meal in the early morning but I believe local people must be seeing the great combination that goes along.

A big clay pot of Bah Kut Teh, almost every table also has a bowl and some table even has a few. Bah Kut Teh taste very close to Penang version where strong of herb flavor, pork inside is very big and the soup is so delicious.

Overall Dim Sum taste very good in Lucky Dim Sum, we like the Bah Kut Teh so much. Highly recommended to try it. There is still lot of people at 10am by the time we left.

After taking our Dim Sum we head down to Pasar, it is actually market that sell lot of thing. Hop on to Tuk-Tuk and tell them “Pasar” then they will know where to drop you.
Pasar is around 1km away from Golden Crown Plaza Hotel, it is a very big market that sell everything and this is the place where you can bargain for good price.
Remember, if you looking for Zebra brand stainless steel item, you can try to ask for few shop as they offer different price. We just have a quick walk and we manage to find at least 5 shops selling Zebra brand.
Hatyai Pasar

Dry fruits is what tourist like to purchase in Hatyai as well, they have lot of variety but the price is just normal. Not really cheap.

Fruit Stall

Flowers
Flowers

Here is the shopping heaven, lot of bag, shoes, shirt, pants…etc selling dirt cheap here. You can get a pair of ladies shoes for just 100baht and a shirt for 150baht or even a handbag for just 200baht.
Hatyai Pasar

Out of the market area on your right is the wet market.

Egg
Fruit Stall

They sell turtle for? I have no idea.
Turtle

Big Car Park

After few hour of shopping and eating, we decided it time to go back hotel and get ready for our next destination. Saw this cute little Jazz with Hello Kitty number plate. So lovely.

Let continue to next page for freezing cold Ice Dome.

Beef Noodle, Hatyai 2012, Ice Cream, Otak-otak, Other Dessert, Seafood, Tart, Thai Food, Thailand

Day 1 Khlong Hae Floating Market

July 31, 2012 Enqvist 9 Comments

Khlong Hae Floating Market is located at Khlong Hae in Hat Yai, you can get there by public transport which is the famous Tuk-Tuk for a small amount of fees or like us you may drive there on your own, the distance from Lee Garden is around 6km. Khlong Hae Floating Market is famous for the way they doing business, small boat are arrange in one stretch selling a big variety of local Thai foods and snacks. The market are running a campaign for environments as they avoid using plastic bag or foam boxes instead they use bamboo, coconut or clay pots.

Khlong Hae Floating Market entrance, no entrance fees required.

By the way, this is where we park our car at road side. Inside the market there is one big parking space but I do not sure how to drive it, probably same entrance as above.
Khlong Hae Floating Market Parking Space

Immediate after the entrance there is a lot of stall on both side of the road.

We saw this cute little souvenir, it is pretty cheap and nice.
Cute dog

In Thailand you are expect to try something exotic and here you can find those exotic food which we are not dare to try, those thigh protein item look to be crunchy and delicious but we just can’t make up our mind to try it.

Next to it is a the Thailand famous coconut ice cream, instead of coconut ice cream it is vanilla ice cream with coconut flesh in it, dressing with jelly and peanut.

After taking some ice cream we find something much more interesting, BBQ sausage and pork meat. The pork meat stick is extremely delicious, pork meat is succulent and delicious, it is BBQ with sweet sauce. The one in the middle is marinated meat on the right is rice sausage, the marinated meat is pretty big in portion and it has slightly spicy taste while the rice sausage has strong pepper flavor.
BBQ sausage and pork meat

A walk further up the path we arrive at the bridge that bring us over to the excited floating market.
floating market bridge

The long awaiting scenery is finally shown, where a lot of hawker selling food in their boat.
khlong hae market

Place your order and they will hand over to you using basket, take your food and place your money inside. This is how the deal go on.
This is a must eat food is Khlong Hea Floating Market, I would call it Otak-Otak as it is what we Malaysian call it.

Otak-Otak size here is totally different from Malaysia, in Malaysia we have Otak-Otak in very small portion while at here it cost 20baht but the size is extremely big.
It is much more flavorful and authentic, the charcoal burning taste also making it taste much more better.
Otak
otak

Most of the lady here are wearing pretty as lot of tourist like to take photo of them, here is the top 3 ladies of the market.
They are all very friendly with great smile.
pretty lady in khlong hae market

A hawker selling bird egg, this type of egg is extremely high cholesterol hence we did not try it also since it doesn’t look to be special as well.
vendor selling egg
egg

We try the beef noodle, I like the rice noodle very much as it has totally different texture compare to Malaysia. The noodle is flat and slightly harder while the soup is flavorful, it doesn’t has strong beef flavor instead it has herb flavor, together with a beef ball and some garlic it just taste good.

Beef Noodle together with a cup of Doraemon drink.

Cute little girl.

Some other snacks sell in the market, we did not try most of the items as it look to be too colorful, must be using lot of coloring.
colorful snacks

This lady is wearing the most beautiful, she sell something like Malaysia Lok-Lok where a bunch ingredient are putting at the stick then grill, she will soak it into a bowl of chili paste which taste spicy and sweet.

Every boat also has a signboard showing what they selling in English with price tag.

This is where we get our Doraemon drink, for 25bath you get a drink with clay pots of your choice or you may get the bamboo container for 20bath.
clay pot drinks

Further up there is a lot of stall selling various items such as shirt, souvenir, decorative items, food…etc
khong hae market stall

The making of glass decorative item

Colorful Sushi

This is a must try items in Thailand, Mango Sticky Rice, one and half mango are served for every plate, very generous amount. As you can see the whole plate is cover with mango. Two type of sticky rice is given, the green color has better flavor while both are slightly salty in taste.

This is the big parking space that I mention above, it should be the same entrance as walk in tourist.
khlong hae car park

I try the small pineapple, it so small, so cute. It is very sweet as well.

Khlong Hae Floating Market is a must visit tourist attraction, it has lot of local food and snack to try. Remember to bring more cash as you will just spend everything on food, even though it cheap but the huge variety will just burn a hole in your pocket. We spend around 3 hours here and our stomach is so full, we are so satisfied with the great food.

In between Khlong Hae Floating Market with our hotel you will pass by Big C, Big C is hypermarket that like Tesco or Carefour. Why we choose Big C is because in Big C is has more local brand and here you can get the famous “Lays” potato slice and “Mama” tom yam instant noodle for very low price.
Big C

We are glad to see KFC here selling Egg Tart which is the same taste as what we eat in HK.
KFC Egg Tart

We saw something interesting in Big C, roasted Pork Knuckle that look so delicious, too bad that only both of us and stomach just can’t fill in much since we are planning for a seafood dinner.

After some shopping a full trolley we are happy to leave Big C and heading toward Shamila Seafood for our dinner.

Shamila Seafood located in town area, which is walking distance from our hotel. It around 500meter away only, it better to go there either by Tuk-Tuk or walking as it is pretty hard to get parking space.
We choose this restaurant as we read quite a number of positive review on their food quality.

Every table will be serve a plate of fresh vegetable, in Malaysia we call it “Ulam” that use to dip with spicy sauce and eat raw. It is very refreshing and healthy.
Ulam

Fresh seafood selling here, choose what you want and they will weight it in front of you. As precaution we always ask for the price to avoid getting chop later.
Lot of variety here, choose what fit your taste bud.

We had a coconut drink and water melons drinks.
coconut and watermelon

We had 4 type of mushroom cook together, it is so delicious as the mix and match of various mushroom make a strong mushroom flavor.
Stir Fried Mushroom

Tom Yam Seafood, the tom yam taste here is slightly more spicy compare to Malaysia, as in Malaysia it taste spicy and sweet but here most of the taste is spicy.
It has very strong ohhmm, I just love the spiciness and sourness of this tom yam soup.

Clay Pot Glass Noodle Crab, this is a must eat dishes as the glass noodle fully absorb the crab essence and the pepper taste making it taste so wonderful. They even wrap the pepper in tea bag to avoid a bite to the spicy pepper, the crab is very fresh as well. We just love this dish so much.

Guess what for three dishes and drink with rice just cost us 680baht, price is reasonable and the best thing is their food quality. Which taste so good. Highly recommended this restaurant to those visit to HatYai.

Well, that conclude our first day in Hatyai and we expect something more for tomorrow. We plan to visit the famous lucky dim sum, pasar, municipal park and ice dome.

Burger, Chicken Rice, Hatyai 2012, Hotel Review, Ice Cream, Thai Food, Thailand

Day 1 Driving to Hatyai from Penang

July 31, 2012 Enqvist 2 Comments

Day 1 Trip Penang –> Hatyai –> Lee Garden –> Kim Yong Market –> Khlong Hae Floating Market –> Shamila Seafood Dinner

Hurray! First travel of the year and it is somewhere near that we can even drive there, driving to a place that has lot of food to eat and lot of shopping and that happening place is Hatyai.
It is recommended to stop by coffee shop at Changloon to purchase car insurance and fill in the white card, we choose to stop by Naluri Aman as it has very big parking space. Before I forgot, remember to fill your car tank before proceed to customs as petrol price is Thailand is around 35bath per little.
When you saw this on your left, turn into it and park at the big parking space then proceed to

Now proceed to Mini Tour for Car Insurance and White Card, Car Insurance cost RM14 for 9 days while white card each cost RM1 including filling in for you. You can save RM1 by getting the white card at custom and fill in by yourself.

After getting everything ready, drive further and you will saw this big station with signboard “Bon Voyage Immigration Complex Bukit Kayu Itam”
Turn to your left and park your card at the big parking space, no need to carry luggage.
Everyone need to go to immigration counter to chop their passport including driver, after chop your passport driver need to proceed to middle counter to submit your car document, once done then proceed to next counter for verification. They will hold the paper for you, you just need to drive your car here and they will pass back the form to you.
Bon Voyage Immigration Complex Bukit Kayu Itam

Done! Let go Hatyai!

Now you can see lot of messy cable and motor driver without safety helmet just everywhere.
Driving further you can see this big statue on your left, you may stop by and take some photo.
Buddha Status

After driving for around 62km you will reach Hatyai Town.

We are too hungry as we stuck in immigration for almost an hour hence we just quickly find a parking space and start hunting for food. You may park your car at Odeon Shopping Mall, it cost 30baht per hour.
Coming out from parking space, we just walk across the road and saw this Ah Jiao Pork Rice 阿嬌猪脚饭
We do have high expectation as Hatyai Pork Leg rice is very famous, even though we simply find one shop and eat but it really good.
The pork is extremely juicy and flavorful while the pickle taste sour and sweet, overall it taste very good but this shop price is slightly higher, 100bath for a plate of rice and drink.
Ah Jiao Pork Rice

After that we walk to Lee Garden Plaza

As you can see most of the area is under renovation only limited shop operating, it has very strong paint smell as well since renovation is on going.
Lee Garden Plaza

We saw this Gelate ice cream shop, she desperately want to try it as the colorful ice cream is so attractive.

We then move to McDonald to eat the “must eat” buger, Samurai Burger! What make this burger so special is the meat inside, it is PORK meat! YEAH!
In Thailand you can get pork meat anywhere so do McDonald, as advice by fellow forum~er Samurai Burger is highly recommended.
We are so happy to try the Samurai Burger and it indeed very tasty, the meat is extremely soft and juicy, together it has sweet sauce that further enhance it flavor.
In Thailand McDonald, they do provide three different type of dipping sauce, one type of chili sauce, local tomato sauce and standard tomato sauce.

Outside of Lee Garden Plaza got some stall selling bag, shirt…etc.

Here come the important part, get a hotel and exchange currency. We choose to exchange at JR Tour which located right opposite of Lee Garden Plaza, the rate here is RM100 = 994baht. We also get our “cheaper” hotel rate here, we stay at Crown Plaza Hotel for just 980baht per night, pretty cheap right?
JR Tour

Saw this while walking around Lee Garden Plaza, I did not try as it cost 100bath for one prawn, even though it pretty big but it seem to be overcook, dry and dirty. We are glad that we never try as my friend told me it is indeed not fresh and tasteless.
Big Prawn

After getting our hotel book, we just walk around and without knowing that we are actually right in front of our hotel Golden Crown Plaza. Since we are here hence we just check in but it still early and the room is not ready.
We have no choice but continue patrolling the town.

She bought this cute little bear, it is fully handmade. Cute?
Cute Bear

Can anybody tell me what is this fruit? How it taste?
unknown fruit

Wreath for praying use.
Wreath

Why the corn got purple color, it doesn’t seem to be normal.
corn

Salty Fish

Various type of drink selling at market area.
Drink Stall

This motorcycle is even better than ghost rider motor, it is fully customize to become carrier. The accelerate handler is located at the push cart instead of the motor body while the front type is taken off and totally depend on the cart type, awesome modification.
Modified Motorcycle

Fruit stall that sell lot of different variety of fruits.

Fresh fruit that come with leave? How come all the leave are same for all type of fruits? Look closer and you will found out that that is not actual apple leave instead it just use for decoration, well I think it is very good idea to show freshness of fruit. It look like just plug from tree.

Deep fried chicken rice 40baht, rice that cook with herb to create rice and deep fried chicken that so crispy, every table has one bowl of chili and pickle free of charge.
Deep fried chicken is so crispy and flavorful while the pickle is our favorite, we almost finish quarter bowl of it, plain water are provided free as well.
Chicken Rice

Lot of stall around the market area.
Lak chi
pot of flower
birds

This is true Thai Durian, gigantic size but no smell at all.

After walking for few hours, we started to get tired and our room should be ready. Pick up our car by paying 90baht parking fee then we proceed to Golden Crown Plaza, the hotel car park is right behind the hotel.
Golden Crown Plaza, 980baht per night, free parking, no wifi, no breakfast.

I am impressed with the room size, spaces and clean. King size bed is comfortably firm, pillow is firm and comfortable.
There are two free drinks available, one thing I dislike is outside the window got a lot of bird drops. This is rather disappointed as it was quite nasty, get rid of it by closing the window and curtain.
Golden Crown Plaza

Television is still old type rather than LED TV, refrigerator is standard hotel size.
Golden Crown Plaza

Toilet is very clean, equip with bath tub and shower area, hot water is working fine as well.
Golden Crown Plaza

Before we heading out to Khlong Hae Floating Market, we decided to ask for Hotel Massage service. It cost 300baht per person for 45 minute, massage service in your hotel room.
Honestly I do not like the massage service as the pressure is too hard and cause some pain, on top of that they both keep chit chatting in Thai language, you just can’t relax.
After massage they keep asking for tips, honestly you do not have to give tips at all but it totally up to you, we just give 20baht since their service is very bad.

Please proceed to next write up for the long awaiting Khlong Hae Floating Market.